FHE, Inc. is a manufacturer of pumps and related fluid-handling equipment used primarily by the automobile, appliance, and construction industries. For a five year period sales and profits have risen due to aggressive new product introduction. However, aggressive new product introduction has resulted in bottlenecks in the engineering services department and a breakdown of communication and coordination among management and departments.
There are several steps Lum Donaldson needs to adopt to improve the new product development process at FHE, Inc. The first step involves company restructuring. At the present time a great deal of coordination is necessary to successfully introduce a new product. Product managers in marketing and technical program managers in engineering must successfully coordinate their activities. Phil Thomas, the vice president of corporate development and marketing, is currently responsible for both marketing and design engineering functions at FHE, Inc. There needs to be a restructuring so that one manager is responsible for each of these functions. So, too, Lum Donaldson needs promoted to Engineering and Quality Planning Manager, responsible for coordination and planning of technical program and product managers.
Another step that Donaldson needs to take has to do with resolving the problem of coordinating the relationship between product managers, technical program managers, and manufacturing managers. This can be resolved by holding weekly meetings to prioritize weekly activities and coordinate efforts of all three departments. Once priorities for the week are set, responsibility can be divided among each of the three departments. In this way Donaldson will have a measure of accountability that is currently lacking because the division of responsibility is not clearly defined. Such meetings should include a review of the Technical Specification Action Report (TSAR) for any new product. In thi...